


Bioluminescent

by Ribbonshalos



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Blood, F/M, First Meeting, Injury, Mermaid!McCree, Mermiad!Sombra, Nameless OCs - Freeform, One Shot, mermaid au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-28 23:07:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16732392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ribbonshalos/pseuds/Ribbonshalos
Summary: McCree has had bad days. Bad days where sand sticks to his fins and the current is tugging him the wrong way. Hungry shark-mers seem to be lurking around every reef. The worst of fish nets are just waiting to ensnared him. Everything seems like a struggle on those kinds of days.Today, two shark-mers follow his blood trail in the water with ease.





	Bioluminescent

McCree has had bad days. Bad days where sand sticks to his fins and the current is tugging him the wrong way. Hungry shark-mers seem to also be lurking around every reef. The worst of fish nets are just waiting to ensnared him. Everything seems like a struggle on those kinds of days.

But this is the bottom of the ocean when it comes to reaching a low. McCree has always appeared like a bright red target with his vibrate tail and the left arm missing below his elbow. Easy prey, but he’s always managed to survive.

Two shark-mers follow his blood trail in the water with ease. The ambush had been sudden. McCree had narrowly missed a jaw of shark teeth in his neck, but couldn’t escape the bite on his lower tail. Red scales hang on with mere inches of flesh around the wide and deep wound. His own blood pollutes the blue ocean as he keeps low to the reef and makes sharp twists and turns.

But to no avail. Every chance he dares to look back, the predators are still hot on his trail. It’s a waiting game now. The blood is brushing against their gills. He and they both know he’ll lose too much blood, or simply become exhausted.

The sun has abandoned him, plunging what may be his last moments of life into a deep, dark blue. His eyes are slow to adjust, but he keeps swimming. The built up of pain and exhaustion begin weighing him down. His tail continues to flip quickly. A slow anchor to what will surely be his death.

He’s never been one for making things easy for others. If they want a meal out of him, he’ll make them earn it.

The chase has brought him to the end of the reef, where the sand turns to jagged rocks and drops suddenly into darkness. Mermaids of his kind never venture to close to the pitch black waters, but this is a good enough place to die.

He attempts one last time to evade. Tucking agianst some rocks, McCree dives into a bowl of sharp coral and sand. There is nothing he can do to stop the blood trail, but maybe a little confusion will leave him with an opening to escape. Pressing his back against a smoother rock, and folding his aching tail underneath him, McCree waits.

The midnight waters are still. Ribbons of maroon lace through the ocean from his tail, traitorously betraying him.

Two grins, full of teeth and finality, appear over the edge of the little divot in the seabed. McCree slips water calmly through his gills, accepting what will come next.

“What a desperate little fish,” the first shark-mer soothes like a seashell being smashed. “You thought you could slip away?”

The second shark-mer is quieter, intent on finishing the hunt. McCree shifts his tail, letting himself stretch out on what was once sun warmed sand. No point in painfully hiding his wound anymore.

“Had to try something,” he drawls slowly, calmly. “I didn’t want to make you think I was an easy meal.”

“Easy meal? No,” the shark-mer continues speaking, as the other circles closer. The second mermaid swims through his blood. It must be intoxicating to smell as it triggers an impatience flicker to its gray tail. “But a delicious one, for certain.”

McCree props himself off the rocks with his one hand. Their both too hungry to keep up the conversation, but McCree is determined to at least leave a mark. Maybe he can even gouge out an eye before his red fills this very small space.

The second shark-mer flashes his sharp teeth, and flips his fin towards him. The last charge. His red fins tense, ready, and somehow, calm.

Just as the mermaid widens his jaw, his gaze lifts above McCree. In moments, the shark-mer turns his attack into a quick turn around. The slick, gray tail flips frantically as he swims past the first shark-mer. That merman’s own gaze is now wide, and the smallest bit angry before he turns tail too.

McCree is only left to wonder what in the world happen when a dark shadow, like an eclipsed moon, falls upon him from above. He raises his gaze to the mermaid blocking the starlight. Shifting in the sand, still holding his bleeding tail with care, McCree curses internally.

Perhaps the only thing worse than getting eaten by two shark-mers is getting eaten by a deep sea mermaid. This day refuses to spare him for one moment.

“I wonder what made them rush off so quickly,” the mermaid voice waves through the water before McCree can see her face. Tones of slippery, alluring cords tug at his ears. “They’re missing out on a perfectly good merman.”

She finally turns, lifting her shadow from his person. Cutting through his blood, the mermaid faces him upon the seabed. A long, strong tail of deep black scales shine with a reflected purple. Lines of bright, electric purple create stripes down the sides of her scales and even leave marks along the shaved sides of her skull. Brown hair as tempting as the tide follows her movements in the ocean, which stalls McCree’s gills for a moment. Her fins flare out in sharp spikes and loose, pretty membranes. Everything touching her person is deadly and mesmerizing.

A real, deep sea mermaid, right before his gaze. The stories of them are horrifying, but they never warned about their alluring beauty.

McCree shifts, bracing once again for the finishing bite.

“I can only guess,” he responds dryly and a few beats late to her words. The flat tone creates an entertained, close lip smile upon the deep sea-mer. The imagination to create what lies behind her mouth is too much for him at the moment.

“Must be your charms, merman,” the mermaid teases. Lowering herself so the flicks of her fins stir up the sand, she begins swimming closer. Her flesh is a olive tone, beautiful in the dark night of the ocean.The reflective shine to her scales keeps catching his gaze. Colors of all shades and brightness are attached to the mermaids of the coral reefs, but there is a strange, frightening kind of pretty to this deep sea-mer. One that McCree doesn’t mind staring at in what will be his last moments.

Slowly pressing against the wall, the last bit of adrenaline he had was used to face the shark-mers. Now, he’ll die without much of a fight. Maybe it’s the blood lost finally getting to him.

As he settles, the dark mermaid looks over him. The blood is obvious enough. His missing arm catches her eyes quickly, but she slowly slips her gaze down his face and to his red, vibrate tail. It’s as if for a moment she’s found a shiny treasure with his scales, but it dulls at the sight of a gaping bite wound.

“Those little fishies really wanted a taste of you,” she muses, almost close enough to reach out and grab his fin. “How long were you swimming from them?”

McCree’s eyelids threaten to close, but he refuses to die without seeing it come. He moves slowly in answering.

“Since late morning.”

Her one, sharp brow raises. Either in surprise or impressed by his determination to stay alive just to end up here. Her long, black tail moves lazily behind her.

“You look like a fighting fish. Those kind have a better flavor.” She finally grins, bearing her full jaw of needle sharp teeth. “I don’t need to smell your blood to know you’d taste delicious.”

Stilling his chest, McCree stares forward, chin held high. He can stare her down before she takes off his head. He won’t die without a little of his dignity left.

The deep sea-mer almost laughs at his expression, before flipping her tail. Twisting through the dark ocean, she rises up and out of the rocky divot McCree lies in. For a second time that night, McCree wonders what in the world happened when she returns. In her hands are several lengths of seaweed, swishing through the water.

The scene doesn’t register within him as she descends. Swimming to where he lies, it finally appears like she’s going to catch her pray. McCree flips his injured tail one last time and darts away, but her one hand catches the end of his fin. Her strength and speed outmatches his easily as she pulls him back and pins his red fin to the sandy bottom. A grunt of pain leaves his lips, but nothing more.

“Stay still,” she says, annoyed.

He can’t give up just yet. When her other hand reaches for his tail, his gaping wound, he struggles. Snarling, the deep sea-mer almost loses her stack of seaweed. She grabs higher up on his scales, and presses him into the sand. The strength of her person causes him to slide down from the rocks, almost stretched out.

“Stop squirming,” she growls, “Stay still.”

“Just do what you came here to do,” he demands. Anger flows through his weak veins at the deep sea mermaid playing with her food.

“And what do you think that is?” her narrow brow holds above him, still framed in dark brown locks.

“Making me your meal,” he snaps, “Do it. I won’t be your little toy.” 

In a second, her annoyance shifts to humor. She arches her brow but lifts her hand from his scales. Her claws leave an impression, but never cut him. Her other hand still pins the thin, delicate membranes of his fin to the sand. He remains in her grasp.

“You are a fighting fish,” she muses. “Good.”

Confusion touches over him once again. She shakes her fist with the seaweed in front of his face.

“You can bleed to death for all I care, but you might not appreciate dying that way.” Her voice of alluring, cutting cords stills him. “So stop squirming.”

He finally does. Out of exhaustion and uncertainty, McCree watches the sharp claws of the mermaid set to work wrapping his gaping wound. Her trust runs thin of him, as she still holds his fins to the sand, but her tight grasp has lighten somewhat.

A deep sea mermaid is bandaging his wounded tail. The unthinking is occurring right before his eyes, but McCree isn’t so sure. He’s heard of mermaids having hallucinations before death. They’ll see all kinds of strange things while their brain is sending off their last sparks.

“Am I already dead?” he finds himself whispering to himself, but the black and purple mermaid hears. Her gaze lifts over him for a moment. The strangest, but most mesmerizing irises of a blue-purple color fill McCree’s view.

“Doesn’t look like it to me,” she says casually. “Hold on, one of those shark-mers left you a gift.”

“What kind of a gift—agh!” McCree cries out as her claws begin to dig into his wound. It’s as if all the previous acts of the deep sea mermaid was a charade, and her true plan comes to the light as her torturing begins.

“Stay still—aye! Stop,” she growls as she still continues to make his wound worst. McCree’s one arm is gripping madly at the rocks and attempting to launch himself from the sand. Her hold begins to weaken on his fin. It painfully dawns on him that she still refuses to stop digging into the bite on his scales.

Her needle sharp teeth flash as she drags him back from the rocks. Twisting, McCree struggles violently from her grasp until she suddenly flicks her dark tail. Coming over him, her hands move up to where scales and flesh meet on his person, and pins him harshly to the sand. He blinks for a moment at the sudden touch, but finds himself inches from her blue-purple eyes.

Light fills her gaze. Literal, glowing light shines from her eyes, and follows the stripes along her skull. The purple stripes flow down her sides, crafting her like a beacon of hope in the midnight stars and edges of the black deep. There is only the want to be near, to hold the light. McCree slowly drifts closer to her eyes, stunned by the glow beside her dark scales. His tail relaxes, care-free and comforted. He only wants to keep to the promise of safety within the purple, electric glow.

A piercing pain takes him back. In one instant, the deep sea mermaid shuts off her glow. McCree blinks slowly as she holds up a bloody, jagged shark teeth between her thumb and forefinger.

“They really wanted to take a bite out of you. Not that I can blame them.” Her eyes, no longer glowing, look with a sharp playfulness. Exaiming the bloody weapon for a moment, she flicks it away in the water.

“I.. that glow—your eyes? How…” McCree can handle lift his tongue to speak a full sentence before the mermaid is back to wrapping his tail.

“Had to get you to stop moving,” she speaks. Her claws carefully twist the seaweed, tying the ends roughly but there is no worry of the bindings coming undone. McCree hardly flinches at that, too wave tossed at this mermaid alone. Her hands hover over his red scales for a moment.

McCree finally swears wearily under his breath as she raises her head.

“Why aren’t you eating me?” he questions tiredly, defeated by all accounts.

Her closed mouth smile doesn’t feel so threatening. Still, lethal warning signs cling to every scale on her tail.

“I’m not hungry.” She flicks her black tail once, floating over his reclined form. McCree has no energy to lean away, or hold a hard stare. The glow of her eyes still echo like a lovely enchantment in his head. “And I think you’re handsome for belonging to the coral reef.”

McCree’s gills move slowly as she comes to girp his one good arm. Tensing, but allowing her to touch him, the deep sea mermaid pulls him back to rest against the rock. All of their movement before had them in the center of the sandy bottom. Settling down, her own tail stretches out along his. Deadly beautiful compared to his raw, ruined red scales, but she folds her arms and leans against the rocks. The sand settles as they both do.

“Consider yourself lucky, merman,” she says teasingly, but meaning it entirely.

Perhaps this day can be saved from the title of worst ever. Compared to what could have been him being a deadly mermaid’s meal, he’ll take this. No matter how surreal it appears to be.

“McCree,” he breathes, finally letting his head fall back. The rocks aren’t soft, but they support his weary skull well enough.

“McCree,” she repeats, making it sound noteworthy on her tongue. “Sombra.”

He lifts his gaze once more to her relaxed form. Beside him in the sand, she tilts her face with a deadly, playful smile before he gives in to rest.


End file.
